The Newsom-Trump Beef Heats Up

Support for this show comes from IBM.

Is your AI built on everyone or is it built to work with your business data?

IBM helps you integrate and govern unstructured data wherever it lives so your business can have more accurate AI instead of just more of it.

Get your data ready for AI at iBM.com.

That's IBM.com.

The AI Built for Business, IBM.

Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start?

Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to.

Don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin, or what that clunking sound from your dryer is?

With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro.

You just have to hire one.

You can hire top-rated pros, see price estimates, and read reviews all on the app.

Download today.

This episode is brought to you by Dogfish Head Craft Brewery.

The Grateful Dead and Dogfish Head have gotten the band back together with the release of Grateful Dead Juicy Pale Ale, a light-body pale ale brewed with sustainable Kernza grains, granola, and heaps of good karma for a refreshing brew that's music to your taste buds.

Available nationwide, visit dogfish.com to find Grateful Dead Juicy Pale Ale in your neck of the woods.

Dogfish Head Craft Brewery is located in Milton, Delaware.

Please drink responsibly.

Yeah, it's true.

You're not a journalist, but you're something.

I don't know what you are.

Hi, everyone.

This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.

I'm Kara Swisher.

And I'm Scott Galloway.

I am about to be in a city that has having a military parade, Scott.

I am wishing I had gotten out of town.

We'll talk about that in a minute.

Oh, are you in L.A.?

I'm in D.C.

No, I'm not L.A.

There's nothing.

I have all the tanks here.

That's where the actual insurrection is going on.

That's what I caught.

Literally, why doesn't he just stay at home?

Yeah.

And like

masturbate the apprentice martial law episode or something?

I don't know.

I don't know.

Can you believe it?

A military,

a military parade.

The last time I was recalling one was during the Bush administration, the first Bush administration.

There was, it was after something with Iraq.

I don't know.

It was something, but he had a lot of military people, and it was very disconcerting.

And it wasn't like this gang here.

It's like there's a lot here.

It's sort of like North Korea plus old Russia kind of stuff.

And the only thing I remember is a stealth bomber going down the mall in Washington from the Capitol to the Washington Monument.

And it was terrifying.

I was like, this is not America, like the stealth bomber, even though it was cool and enormous, but it was just chilling to the entire crowd.

Yeah, I mean, we don't want to put tanks on the ground in Ukraine as Russian.

troops pour over the border, but a guy wants to roll out tanks as he, you know, shitposts or tweets from a golf cart in orthopedic shoes.

I mean, the whole thing is just such cosplaying masculinity.

It's so weird.

It's so

sad.

It keeps every one of these things.

I'm thinking, how small is this?

Well, anyway.

Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today, including Elon groveling and Trump and China making nice for now.

And just for everyone to know, next week, Scott and I will be together in France again.

Is that right?

That's a trip to France.

Line.

Do you have a French accent?

Was that your French accent?

I used to do amazing accents.

Now it sounds like

a dead language that twins speak to each other.

I could do an amazing Glaswegian accent.

You couldn't.

Oh, my God.

You could even do Pepe Le Pieu, that famous day rapist, Pepe Le Pieu.

You could do that.

You didn't love Pepe Le Pieu?

Oh, my God.

It's so bad when you watch it now.

It's literally

Harvey Weinstein of

cartoons.

It really is.

You're like,

go back and look at it.

All right.

Between Pepe Le Pieu,

I dream a genie,

and what was the other really sexist thing I was watching all the time?

Oh my God.

A third three's company.

Oh, the price is right.

And now a new car and a woman in a bathing suit showing you that

one was tame compared to like, um, oh, they're all terrible.

I liked I Dream of Genie.

I hate to say it, but it was really sexist with that outfit.

Yes, master.

Genie, go to your bottle.

Is it, I'm literally the only, everyone should, should just appreciate how far I've come.

How far I have come.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Why?

Why have you come?

You, you liked I Dream of Genie.

I like Di Dream of Genie.

I still like I Dream of Genie.

I'm sorry, Barbara Eaton Rob.

Yeah, I wouldn't, but watching, I'm not exaggerating.

I watched Two Hours a Day at I Dream of Genie during my formative years.

And I'm not sure that was the right baseline level for how you interact with women.

I did the same thing.

That's why we love each other.

I love Did I Dream of Genie.

I watched it all the time.

Oh, I bet you did, you little lesbian.

I am I little less than yeah, exactly.

I think essentially Jeff Bezos is this, is I Dream of Genie.

He finds a 2,000-year-old magical woman with Botox and instead of freeing her, makes her his roommate.

It's Jeff Bezos.

It's literally Jeff Bezos' I Dream of Genie.

Anyway, kids look at I Dream of Genie and watch it sometime.

It's really, it's a, it's a classic.

Anyway, we've got a lot to get through today, as I said.

Elon groveling and Trump and China making nice for now, but there's a lot going on, including the protests against Trump administration's immigration raids are now spreading nationwide.

Nice job, Trump.

Trump is claiming that Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated without National Guard deployment, which is a flat-out lie.

Talk to anybody in Los Angeles.

It's ridiculous, unless you're watching Fox News and then it's true.

He also deployed 700 Marines in the LA area against the objections of every single group of people, most of whom don't get along.

In recent days, Trump has floated invoking the Insurrection Act, a law that grants the president the authority to deploy the military on U.S.

soil.

It's a big move.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has gotten a lot of attention and is doing quite a good job pushing back, spoke out about Trump's actions in a televised address on Tuesday, calling this a perilous moment for democracy.

Let's listen to some of that speech.

California may be first, but it clearly will not end here.

Other states are next.

Democracy is next.

Democracy is under assault before our eyes.

This moment we have feared has arrived.

He's taking a wrecking ball, a wrecking ball to our founding fathers' historic project, three co-equal branches of independent government.

There are no longer any checks and balances.

Congress is nowhere to be found.

Speaker Johnson has completely abdicated that responsibility.

The rule of law has increasingly been given way to the rule of Don.

Well done, Gavin.

I have to say,

he's taking every opportunity here to show himself off, which he is.

More protests are expected this weekend, tied to the massive military parade in D.C.

that's official, as I noted, celebrating the Army's 250th birthday, but just so happens to fall on Trump's 79th birthday, which will call attention to the fact that the man is really old.

The No Kings protests are set to be the largest nationwide mobilization since Trump took office.

These look like astonishing, actually.

They're all over the place.

Trump is already warning that any protesters at the parade will be met with very big force, whatever that is.

They are allowed to protest, by the way, FYI.

But many of the no-kings people are saying don't protest in D.C.

and give them a reason to attack us.

But they are pretty much nationwide.

First, let's talk about Newsom.

And then let me just also add that Tom Cotton, as usual, popped up like a bad penny with an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal titled Send in the Troops for Real, playing off his infamous New York Times op-ed in 2020.

We're recording this ahead of Trump's military parade, which is on Saturday.

Talk a little bit about Newsom, Trump, these protests.

It feels very North Korean to me, but your thoughts.

I think Newsom has basically identified himself right now.

I think he's the big winner in all of this.

I think he kind of accidentally has become the spokesperson for the pushback.

So I think this, one of the silver linings here is that it is

we now have what is kind of a de facto leader of the Democratic Party.

And I think it's essentially Governor Newsome leads the fourth largest economy in the world.

It's a net giver in terms of federal tax income for all the problems California has.

It's actually, on most metrics, doing really well.

Whether it's the center of the newest technology in the world, more people are moving back to California now.

And California has more billionaires than any other state.

And these are people with options for all the shitposting these techno-libertarians like to do about California.

They could move anywhere in the world and they decide to stay in.

See above California.

Which way, Scott, they're all back, just so you know.

Yeah, you've been saying that for a while.

You said there was going to be a boomerang, and you were right.

Because of AI, especially.

But go ahead.

So, look, and anyone who has

driven up Highway 1 or

checked out the Surfers or Zuma Beach or been to the Hollywood Bowl, or I mean, it's just, or been in the desert,

and seen the sunset in the desert or been to Carmel or Yosemite.

I mean, you just stunning state yeah it's it is it it's it's arguably the most beautiful country in the world it just happens to be a state within the united states and it offers the best universities best technology anyway he has become sort of overnight kind of the spokesperson for or the leader of the democratic party the the bad news here is that i think a lot of these protesters are playing into trump's hands And that is, you can't, you can't tell people how to protest, but when you see images,

so for example,

if you could give the protesters, if the protesters are generally trying to help their own cause, and that is say, look, a lot of us have been here for 10 years.

It's one thing if you want to deport criminals, but if you're deporting people, if you're rounding up people at a Home Depot that have paid their taxes for 20 years and then going to their schools and their churches, I don't think most people are on board with that.

No, they're not.

But they're polling, not at all, but go ahead.

But in my opinion, they hurt their own cause when they show up with more Mexican flags than American flags.

And I understand what they're doing, but keep in mind, a lot of Trump supporters and a lot of moderates, when they see protesters with Mexican flags, they think invasion.

And the things that really hurt this protest, in my mind, and there's nothing you can do about it because it's free speech, when someone shows up with a Palestinian flag and a mask, what people see is terrorism.

So, and unfortunately, the media will cover those limited instances, which are 0.01% of these protests, as opposed to covering a really thoughtful civil protest with signs.

And that's what most of this is.

And just to show you how incredibly asinine this is, how the snake is eating its own tail, is that if you, who is the National Guard that's been pulled or deployed or activated?

A lot of them are cops.

A lot of them are people who work in law enforcement.

And a lot of them are in this division called the Rattlesnakes that Governor Newsom uses for fire reclamation or clearing out brush.

And And then they get called up to the National Guard.

But during the day, if they get called up to be police officers or if the LAPD gets called up, the LAPD is being deployed.

Additional LADPD forces are being deployed to where the National Guard is because the National Guard's presence increases hostilities and likelihoods of violence.

Right.

Which is why the police department is like, get the fuck out of here.

Like we're handling it.

So the LAPD has to be deployed to protect the National Guard, who is creating problems and dissent and agita where there doesn't need to be any.

I do think that is sinking into people.

They're like, what are they doing here?

And especially in areas, I think the protests, I get it.

They're going to play the picture of the burning Waymo over and over again.

The flags don't look good.

But I think this weekend will be interesting because

I think this no kings thing could be really effective because I was just looking at some of the stuff and amanda was pointing out to me like they have 20 different no kings events in maine like and they're very oversubscribed kind of they think a lot of people are going to show up so if there's a peaceful show of support i think americans do like that agreed but that's not what's getting the media right now and the republicans have tried to weaponize protesting right they're trying to say protesting is insurrection when in fact of course and because they're the most hypocritical group on the planet you know the real insurrection was of course, that attack on the Capitol.

And so

when it suits them, they say protests are dangerous.

When it suits them, they say they're patriotic tourist visits or whatever they call it.

What I think they continue, I think Penny seems to be dropping with a lot more people, I think, than you think.

That it's like,

I hope so.

I really do, because

I think that at the end of the day, this is, I mean, first off, let's go to some historical analogies here, right?

Kent State, right?

The Ohio National Guard hopped up on authority in bad intel, basically killed four kids protesting the Vietnam War.

And the governor called in troops to quote-unquote restore order, right?

That sounds familiar.

He didn't restore anything.

He radicalized a generation and permanently scarred the American psyche.

The really the best analogy here is Hitler in the 30s, the Reichstag fire decree, and that is he wanted to consolidate power.

So when an autocrat wants to consolidate power, essentially Hitler didn't invade Poland to consolidate power.

He invaded civil liberties.

Yes, he did.

Yeah.

And

the playbook here is you use the threat of chaos to invoke emergency powers and suspend basic rights and criminalize dissent.

And that's exactly what's going on here.

And this is essentially.

President Trump is lighting a match and kind of pointing at the smoke, so to speak.

Which is why I do think there's a lot of pushback, a lot more pushback than

you.

I think there's a lot of pushback.

Every, every Democratic governor is now prepared, has seen his playbook

are trying to handle this in a different way.

I think he's just incompetent at it.

Now, I know, again, you don't have to be competent to be, to do this.

You can be cloddish and idiotic.

But to me, I mean, the question is, will

which message will get through?

And I do think Newsom has been an effective messenger, finally, right?

And so it's a question of messaging is we're not, we, we've been trying to get out of, he's also, every time he speaks, he goes, we've worked to remove criminals, immigrants from our, you know, from our state.

You know, we do it all the time.

And, but these are, but these, there was images today of ICE people chasing farm workers across a field.

This is not, this is weird to people, especially employers.

It's, it's weird.

You know, it starts to hit businesses because of the, because Steve Miller can't find enough immigrants.

It's a similar, it reminds me a little of of Doge.

They didn't really find as much, right?

They didn't find as much trouble.

They have to go after law-abiding people who are here illegally, who are paying taxes.

I feel like which of the dueling messages is going to work is,

we'll see.

We'll see.

We'll see.

When ICE has to go to a Home Depot,

a church or school.

And a field.

It doesn't in a field where people are picking our fields.

We were chasing them across the field.

They were picking like avocados, whatever the heck they were.

But it's a larger point, and that is, are these the people we should be kicking out?

I mean, are these

church-going people working at Home Depot picking your crops?

Are those really the people you want

out?

And

so, like, I hope you're right.

If I could, you can't manage or procure or manicure First Amendment speech.

But if I had any advice, if I wanted to say, I've struggled my whole life with the difference between being right and being effective.

And I think civil protest against, you know, the No Kings movement, it's very powerful.

They're right.

Where they lose all effectiveness and play into the enemy's hands is when they show up with masks, Palestinian flags, and Mexican flags.

Bring the fucking American flags and be civil.

and be make it impossible.

I remember once you said to me, I always used to say very provocative things and all of these things, people were attacking me on Twitter.

And you said something, you said, Scott, don't give them anything.

And right now I worry sometimes the protesters in, and I'll give you an example.

I mean, I'm really Machiavellian.

If I were part of this Trump MAGA, weird, fucked up Stephen Miller movement, I'd send out 100 people with Palestinian flags and masks to try and cause trouble.

Yes, I get it.

To invoke an overreaction.

And they would do exactly what they claim other people do, the false flags and all the nonsense.

And to give people the impression that these people on the left are out of fucking control and

get your anger glands going.

I don't think they're competent enough to do that.

I don't think.

I think they are not competent, actually.

More American flags, less masks.

I would agree, but I do think this has not been a protest that's given them enough stuff.

Like the Floyd, the George Floyd one.

I think they're disappointed at how civil it is.

I know.

They don't have enough stuff.

And if this two, if this, if this, if this no kings seems bigger than this military parade, it's, it's, it's a, it's a dueling messages here.

So one of the things that doesn't help the Trump people, there's new reporting of this incredible piece in ProPublica on Trump's favorite autocrats, President President Bukele of El Salvador.

The U.S.

investigate a U.S.

investigation found that Bukele colluded with MS-13.

Of course, he did, even paying the gangs for votes, according to ProPublica.

And despite his crime-fighting reputation, Bukele has his top aides blocking extraditions of MS-13 leaders to the U.S.

This guy is working hand in glove.

So, U.S.

money is going to pay MS-13 people.

This piece is astonishing.

And of course, no surprise whatsoever.

This guy is such a sleazy.

He presents sleazy and he is sleazy.

And the way he's gotten into, you know, this is like the plot of a Harrison Ford movie of a jacket, you know, a Clancy, a Tom Clancy thing, where the alleged good guy crime fighter is like up and up in the grill of drug dealers and other people.

So this piece is really not great for Trump because it looks like Trump is.

paying for MS-13 leaders.

I don't even think that'll rise to the top.

I don't know.

I I think it has a little minute.

I sent it to a lot of people I know from El Salvador.

I'm like, you might want to read this.

Like, because they do,

it looks like he's not pushing back crime.

He's just like, he's getting, one of the things in the story is he's getting people, like, there was a lot of crime in the streets.

And so there'd be dead bodies on the streets.

And what MS-13 is doing at his behest is burying them.

So it's, you know, it's sort of, I don't know, this guy is, I think this guy is going to be eventually cooked.

I mean, what I was trying to do is I try and step back from the, the force, if you will,

or get outside the matrix.

I think the biggest takeaway is, I think this is all going to calm down.

I think, to your point, I think the administration realized, no, this isn't working as well as we'd hoped.

One, I think the big takeaways here are that,

I think, to your point, a lot of states are going to prepare for this.

This has created, I think, a bit of

a fascist indigestion.

I do think more and more people are like, wow, is this really,

I mean, all of these emergency, fake emergency orders to violate people's rights, it seems like it's going really far.

Two, I do think that Newsom is now kind of the de facto party leader.

But the biggest thing is that it's been, it will be a two-week distraction from thoughtful, robust discussion about, around this tax bill.

which is really will have much more impact on the nation than

those.

Absolutely.

But let me just say, and these polls that are coming out, the

Quinnipac poll that show very bad polling for Trump on immigration.

He's underwater on every issue, including the bill, right?

Including Medicaid cuts, including immigration.

I thought he was still positive on immigration.

I thought

he was not positive on that.

It's not.

He is way down.

And

we'll see how the rest of them, but there's several polls where he's show where people are, including what's more interesting is obviously Democrats are going to be against all this stuff, but Republicans are particularly irked.

And they were irked by the Elon thing, too.

That seemed to

set them off.

And so

this polling is interesting, is he's not, it doesn't give him strength with going into this bill because polling is showing that people don't like it, don't like the bill itself.

And so I do think at some point the Republican members of Congress are going to look very carefully at these polls.

And if Trump is not as strong as

he seems,

it'll take some shine off of him, I think it absolutely does.

Because projection of strength when polling is showing lack of strength is to me a problem.

Speaking of lack of anything, Trump says the U.S.

and China have a trade deal again.

It's essentially the old deal, which going back to zero.

He posted on True Social the deal is done pending final approval for both him and President Xi.

It's such nonsense.

According to Trump, China will resume shipments of rare earth minerals, though the Wall Street Journal reports China put a six-month limit on those export licenses.

The U.S.

will back some of the export restrictions and scrap proposed visa limits on chin chinese students more more taco but tariffs will remain u.s tariffs on chinese goods will now total 55 percent while chinese tariffs on american products are at 10 percent we're back

i feel like we're back we're back at square one it's surprise um no one of course also that trump is highly likely to push back his july 8th deadline to reach trade deals according to treasury secretary best sent this this is like spinning wheels it's like and you're back exactly where you started, essentially.

Yeah, that's been our prediction all along that after all of this nonsense, after this erosion in brand equity of the U.S., after creating a brand association toxic uncertainty, we're going to end up kind of where we were before the tariffs.

I would argue we may even be a little bit worse off.

Worse off because of the brand,

the U.S.

brand is broken.

Well, but even on straight empirical terms, because I think China has recognized they have a very strong hand because of their, of all things, their rare earth mineral magnets, which I guess are key to automakers.

They key to a lot of people.

A A lot of people.

And they kind of have a monopoly on.

And again, the calculus these guys just haven't been able to do is they look at both sides of the equation and who is bigger or where the

sum is greater.

But what they forget is that it's a different scale because China will starve people.

You know, we freak out when our Netflix goes down for 30 minutes.

It's just their tolerance for pain is much greater than ours and their leadership's ability or willingness to impose pain for national interests are just, you know, it's just such a different system.

We, we say to our companies, you know, our companies that donate money to PACs who get people nominated because of gerrymandering.

So essentially you have kind of corporate profits sort of are the most, at this point, are the most influential thing.

America's run for profit, you know, China's run for power.

And that is they decide what would be best, according to the CCP, would be best for the long-term interests of China, according to them.

And for them, the number one thing is we maintain power.

But

it's different in kind of the long-term

thinking, if you will, it's much more on China's side because they're not worried about quarterly earnings.

They're not worried about BYD hitting its numbers this quarter for fear that BYD isn't going to give money to the CCB because basically all the money BYD has is in the CCB's

control.

Yeah, control.

You know what he could have just done is settled the situation in Gaza and settled the situation in Ukraine.

He'd look, he'd get his famous Nobel Prize, right?

Like, that's all he had to do and shut the fuck up instead of all this manic.

He confuses,

there's an expression I use with people.

I use it when I was a manager and I'm not a manager anymore, but that people that confuse activity with productivity, right?

Like people that are manic and move around a lot, they look like they're doing things.

It's sort of like, look busy, Jesus is coming kind of thing.

This guy confuses activity with productivity, and none of this is productive whatsoever.

And it makes us look stupider.

And it gives an enormous amount of tells to all kinds of people, whether it's Europeans or Chinese or whoever we're dealing with.

Everyone can tell what's going to happen here.

You know, we're world's worst poker player of all time.

Like, really, the sucker, when you don't know who the sucker in the room is, it is, as it's turned out, Trump.

But it just, I find this just a ridiculous waste of our time and not good for the U.S.

economy.

Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break.

We come back.

Elon's caving continues.

What a surprise.

Morning decisions.

A creamy mocha frappuccino drink?

A sweet vanilla?

Maybe a smooth caramel or that white chocolate mocha.

Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits.

Start your day with bottled Starbucks frappuccino drinks.

Pick up a bottle near you wherever you buy your groceries.

Class is now in session.

And the UPS store is here to help you ace arriving on campus.

Our certified packing experts can pack everything you need from desktops to decor.

Plus, when you pack and ship with us, you get our exclusive pack and ship guarantee.

Your items arrive safe or your money back.

Restrictions and limitations apply.

To get a 20% off packing coupon and for full details, visit the upsstore.com/slash packing.

At blinds.com, it's not just about window treatments, it's about you, your style, your space, your way.

Whether you DIY or want the pros to handle it all, you'll have the confidence of knowing it's done right.

From free expert design help to our 100% satisfaction guarantee, everything we do is made to fit your life and your windows.

Because at blinds.com, the only thing we treat better than windows is you.

Visit blinds.com now for up to 40% off-site-wide, plus a professional measure at no cost.

Rules and restrictions apply.

Scott, we're back.

Elon Musk says he regrets some,

only some, of his recent posts.

He didn't say which ones, about President Trump writing in an ex-post at 3 a.m.

this week that, quote, they went too far, although he didn't exactly say which posts or what he meant and which ones.

The public groveling comes after a private phone call with Elon reaching out to Trump late Monday, according to the New York Times.

Vice President J.D.

Vance and White House Chief of Staff Susie Waz were reportedly the peacemakers pushing Elon to repair his relation with Trump.

When asked about Elon's post, Trump told the New York Post, I thought it was very nice that he did that.

I don't know what to say.

I don't think he can hold on after if Trump does some things he doesn't like.

I think he'll have another 3 a.m.

something else happening, but we'll see.

He's trying to turn his attention to Tesla, hyping the robo-taxi launch in Austin this next week.

He says it could slide because Tesla is being super paranoid about safety.

Also,

we'll talk about this advertising thing in a second, but talk about this apology.

I mean, it's just Trump's never letting him back.

That's what I read from it.

And Susie Wiles has played this beautifully

in jacking this guy out of the picture.

And by the way, speaking of polling, his polling is even worse than Trump's.

Yeah, I think he's, I think right now he looks like a dog.

Rumming around with one of those domes.

You know, it's like, okay.

I'm going to give you one of those.

I've just been neutered and I look stupid and I'm upset and depressed.

I think he's just walking around with his dog dumb right now.

He just, he,

the president is more powerful than Elon.

And I think he was under the impression that, you know,

I'm invincible.

I'm Rocket Man.

I'm Iron Man.

And

he gets into a fight.

It's a giant fucking distraction.

He's not going to get anywhere near the West Lawn again unless it's highly catered and manicured.

And I just thought it was so funny listening to all these Fox people talk about how sad it was the fight was.

And they're like, they don't seem to be worried about Ukraine or Gaza.

But they're just so heartbroken over the breakup

of Musk and Check.

They all turned on Musk in a second after being his biggest cheerleaders, which was hysterical to see.

Yeah.

Again, another.

I don't know.

I know.

Sad.

Another distraction.

Who cares?

Yeah.

And his Robo-Taxi thing is, I mean, it's incredible how many people are using Waymo, even though some of them got destroyed in Los Angeles.

But

we'll see if he catches up.

You're not going to the launch event.

I mean, I was looking at it last night, 2015.

He said it was going to be two years.

And then every year since 2016, he said it's going to, self-drive is going to come.

Every interview I've ever done with him, he's like, well, next year when we have full self-driving, it's going to come within the year.

One of my interviews was in a lawsuit where he lied about it.

Right.

And then he said the interview was fake.

It was just crazy.

He said it so many times.

And it was got comical after a while.

It's like, oh, this year, this year?

Is it going to be this year?

And of course, we'll see.

I'm sure they'll get them out on the streets because other people are deploying them.

So he can just copy them.

But I feel like.

I don't think this is going to be the winning move for him.

And also, for people who don't know,

the optimist robot thing is the other thing they're trying to do at Tesla.

And the person who ran it just left.

There's all these people leaving Tesla.

I think it's in a spiral.

Well, he needs, it's going to be interesting because he has a launch event, which they delayed another couple of weeks.

It's being done in a geo-fenced area of Austin to try and control it.

But even he said Tesla is either going to be worth a lot more with self-autonomous and Kathy Woods out there saying that autonomous is the future and putting a

thousand dollar price target on

Tesla, or he said, or it's going to be worth next to zero.

And if you were to value Tesla as just an automobile company and say, all right, it looks like they are losing slash loss the autonomous race, and you valued every Tesla at the same market cap as BYD, which is generous because BYD is doing better and it seems to have a better car for less money.

But if you gave Tesla the benefit of the doubt and said, okay, it's at least a BYD-like brand and gave them the same market cap per vehicle that BYD commands, it would mean that Tesla stock would decline by 95%.

It's such a brand destruction.

You know, I honestly, Scott,

when I see them on the street, I don't let them in.

I don't know why.

I just hate the brand now.

And I like the brand.

I really did like the Tesla brand.

But I just don't like people in them.

And I know that's unfair.

I feel like a jerk for doing that.

You know, first time in a while, I saw the Cybertruck in DC.

There were a bunch of them here at the beginning of the Trump era.

And I saw one and I hadn't seen one in a while.

And having seen it, not in a while, I was like, oh, what a terrible.

Who didn't stop him and say, you can't do this?

You cannot release this trap.

Yeah, but just some compensation for that is it's good to know that right now there are more National Guard troops and Marines in LA than there are stationed in Syria or Iraq combined.

Correct.

I mean, talk about if you're, if you're the president, for me, it always comes back to management.

What is a manager supposed to do?

You're supposed to deploy capital to a greater return than your competitive set.

And this is how he is deploying the military capital.

He's taking it down in Syria and Iraq.

He's not using his sway and power to force Israel to announce a multinational Arab force into Gaza and stop the destruction there.

He's not figuring out a bipartisan legislation which he could get to put more teeth into the sanctions against Russia to get them to the table.

He's sending in the National Guard to fucking Paramount Boulevard, to like Culver City.

I mean, he does not know how to allocate capital.

I just don't.

And at the end of the day, the president, folks, who you want as a president is someone you don't hear about and is just a very good manager.

And

yeah, and knows how to allocate more capital than any capital allocator in history.

And this guy is just a terrible capital allocator.

He never did.

Come on.

He was such a shitty business person.

One of the things that my favorite part of, we'll go back to the Zelling thing is all these people posting pictures of like having lunch in L.A.

And like, it's terrible here.

There is a lot of AI slop, by the way.

I grew up in LA.

I've texted all my friends and I said, what's going on there?

How is it?

And they're like, you're watching the same thing I am.

That's not.

I mean, granted, a lot of my friends are pretty privileged.

They're not living in downtown L.A., but they're like, yeah, we haven't seen anything.

Yeah.

I have friends all over L.A.

and they're like, this is fucking ridiculous.

But anyway, there's a lot of AI slop out there showing much worse than it is.

It's just not true.

A lot of the imagery that's being used.

And Fox, of course, it's like.

It's Armageddon.

I feel like they're using clips from that movie, Escape from LA or something like that.

Anyway, the second thing, this is interesting, because we're headed off to France for Con Lions.

And it's the, or is it Con Lyon?

I don't know.

Can.

It's called Cannes.

I know it's Cannes with France.

Can Lions, whatever.

Can Lions.

We're going to France underpants.

And advertising is the big deal here, but this was an interesting story.

And I don't know if Linda Yakarina is going to be there, but I hope not to see her.

Elon Musk's ex has made a habit of threatening advertisers with legal action if they don't sue you.

I love that.

Advertise with us or we'll sue your ass.

X is really used threats of lawsuits.

This is a Wall Street Journal story.

It was really interesting.

Everybody, I'd heard this from a lot of people.

So to secure at least six large advertisers that pressure campaigns targeted advertisers like Amazon, Verizon, Pinterest, Ralph Lauren, including some of the illegally, including, accusing them of illegally colluding in an ad boycott after Musk take over the platform.

And the threats weren't empty.

Pinterest declined to increase ad spending on X and found itself added to the ad boycott suit, which is they're going to lose.

And as the world goes these days, the FTC is investigating whether antitrust laws were violated by coordinated boycotts of advertisers.

So

I think this is probably going to go away.

What in the fuck, actual fuck, you have to like, you have to take my ads if I don't think it's a safe place.

You know, I'm sure they've made, tried to make safety improvements on that platform, but it's not working.

It's not, it's not a safe place to advertise so easily.

It's so clearly not a safe place to advertise.

What do you think about this?

This is nuts.

I mean, I know very little about X.

Now I got off it two years ago, but NBC did a study and they found that over 150 verified premium accounts, I guess that's the blue check ones, have all posted or amplified pro-Nazi content.

And

I think the easiest way to get fired in media is to buy ads on X.

Because if you buy ads on X,

It's like going to work for the mob.

There's no getting out.

It's like you're not allowed to leave.

And what basically is happening here is there's a non-zero probability if you begin advertising on X, if you decide to stop, you might end up in a lawsuit.

They might sue you.

I can't think that's a good business strategy.

I can't imagine how hard it must be to be, generally speaking, ad salespeople that end up at Cannes.

They're either former athletes or hot women because that's who media buyers want to hang out with.

And they're generally like 105 IQ, 135 EQ people.

They're the fraternity rush chairmen.

They weren't the president.

They weren't scholars.

They're super social, super likable, nice people.

And they make good money.

Their colleagues hate them because they're the most overcompensated relative to their IQ and their work ethic.

But they're really attractive and

they're nice people to hang out with.

That job at X must be the worst job in the world right now.

100, but threatening them.

They don't like being threatened.

Well, and I imagine most of the salespeople at X are not threatening people.

They're not, they're probably just trying to sell fucking ear cleaner ads.

Whatever it is,

they're doing their best to get L'Oreal to test again on this platform that doesn't work.

And then I would imagine a lot of advertisers who have no shortage of places to spend their precious ad dollars are like, boss, why would I advertise with you?

Is someone going to call me and threaten to sue me if I decide to pause my campaign?

Right, which is that shit.

Yeah, I think, listen.

Linda Akina used to have a great reputation

of this cadre of people.

She's never going to work in this business.

Will she need to, though?

My guess is they're not dumb.

He probably promised her enough fucking money.

But you know how that works with him.

People who work for him don't always end up in the best place.

But it must be, but just realistically, Kara,

he's been able to attract so many talented people to run different companies for him.

I don't believe that

his compensation system must be very generous.

Possibly.

Well, I've heard different things.

I've heard mixed things.

A lot of people couldn't get out fast enough, and then they didn't get what they were paid.

He does, he does a combination of things.

In this case, it is an embarrassment that someone who was a well-regarded advertising person is resorting to lawsuits in order to sell ads.

And in a paranoid fashion, I've heard from lots of people that she truly believes that there was a it was a conspiracy.

And because she's in that world, she's sort of a Trumper and everything else.

But it's just, it's an embarrassment, Linda.

You used to be, I worked with her.

She was good.

This is an embarrassment.

And she should be ashamed of herself, what she's doing.

Anyway, she was good.

She was really, she was the top one, and or one of the top people.

And she worked at NBC, is that right?

She did.

I worked with her.

And she was, you know, she was an ad person, right?

You know, though, that type.

And I sure do.

And good at it.

And people hang out with it.

I like them.

And good at it.

But this is just, you have covered yourself in shame.

And let me tell you, all your old friends say that to me.

Anyway, let's go on a quick break.

We come back.

We'll talk about Open AI's Google deal.

I know it can seem like we're drowning in problems, but the truth is, for every issue the world is facing, there are sharp, brilliant minds conceiving big ideas to solve them.

That's why my friend and business insider, co-founder Henry Blodgett, whom I brought to Vox Media, is launching a new podcast, Solutions with Henry Blodgett.

Every week, he'll interview leading thinkers across business, tech, politics, and more to get to the bottom of how we finally put these pressing problems to bed.

Make sure to check out the first episodes of Solutions with Henry Blodgett on Monday, August 18th on YouTube and other podcast apps.

Today explained Shaw Robinson outside the Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

to ask, would you want to live on Mars?

No, I wouldn't want to live on Mars.

No.

I just think simply it's just too dangerous.

Yeah.

Oh, hell yeah, of course.

It'd be cool to see something different and be pioneers.

Even with the risk involved?

I mean, we risk our lives when we walk out here on the streets.

No, I would miss my family.

They're all here.

I would not want to leave them behind.

If I got paid for it, yeah.

How much did you want to get paid for it?

$10,000.

That's it?

Yeah?

You got to ask for more.

Okay, $1 million.

That's more like it.

No, because the risk of death is too high.

What are the risks?

Have you seen The Martian?

With Matt Damon?

Yeah.

Thank you.

Living on Mars on Today Explained from Vox.

I'm Henry Blodgett, host of Solutions from the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Every week, I grill the world's best thinkers on how to actually fix our problems, starting with the U.S.

economy.

In our first episode, Out Now, I asked Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman about everything.

Tariffs, the deficit, China, manufacturing, taxes.

What is a good progressive tax scheme?

The answer actually is 73%.

So we can stop fighting about that one.

Follow Solutions with Henry Blodgett on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

Scott, we're back with more news.

OpenAI plans to use Google Cloud Service to meet its computing needs.

The deal doesn't replace OpenAI's need for Microsoft's Azure, which used to be the company's exclusive partner.

Google is not yet delivering compute to OpenAI, but the deal was reportedly signed last night.

It's important.

They need more compute.

In a similar story, Facebook is working with Scale AI, this very talented guy

who's the founder of it, in trying to reboot their AI.

The Lama stuff wasn't going as well as Mark Zuckerberg expected, and he's now shook the trees there there and is redoing it, which is good.

He's good that way to do those things.

And on the AI news front, OpenAI has delayed the release of its first open model in years, which is really expected this month.

But it's pulling away.

Even I've talked to meta people and other people, and they're like, Open AI is pulling away in terms of features, constant features.

So it's still a real race going on here.

Google's extended voluntary buyouts, by the way, to U.S.

employees in multiple divisions, cost-cutting measures to help fund for AI spending.

And they're all rejiggering.

Even at Google, there's there's new people.

They're reassessing who should be running this and what their focus should be, each of these companies.

But they're all doing a lot.

And

this new eye research lab that Meta's doing is going to be dedicated to pursuing super intelligence.

There's just a lot going on in the sector.

Yeah, I thought both announcements, the announcement that OpenAI was going to work with Google, the Google Cloud, kind of blew my mind because I would have thought that

Microsoft would have captured all of that business.

And I don't know if it's a falling out and OpenAI wanting to diversify their compute supply chain or if, according to Microsoft, Microsoft is saying, we just don't even have enough given how amazing and how dominant OpenAI is.

And we need

more than one source of compute.

It just kind of blew my mind when I heard that.

The other thing that I thought was really interesting is that

Google is now a newspaper company.

I remember at the New York Times, we were constantly sending out letters saying a voluntary buyout.

Google just sent out voluntary buyout letters to a ton of people and basically saying that these are the jobs that are most vulnerable to AI.

And typically the way it waterfalls is that, all right, we offer you a buyout.

And if you don't take this buyout of X, if you get fired in three months, you only get 0.5X.

Now, the problem with these types of buyouts is the people, the best people leave.

And the way you usually do these buyouts is you go to your top 10% and you say, FYI, you're on the inside.

We're doing a buyout, buyout/slash layoff, trying to encourage people to leave, but you're doing really well here.

You're about to get promoted.

Just ignore the letter.

That's the smart kind of buyout move is you go to the people you don't want to leave.

The other thing they're doing is everyone talks about quiet quitting.

The new quiet firing is back to work mandates.

And if you'll notice, on the same day, Google announced a return to work mandate because they know they'll lose 10, 20, 30% of people who got really used to walking their dog in Prospect Park every afternoon.

And so a lot of people will leave.

So, but what's interesting is Google, which has got the greatest concentration of intellectual IP around AI, has real insight into the world, where the economy and jobs are going to have said AI is going to eliminate a lot of these jobs.

Which we've heard from a lot of companies.

We've heard from a lot.

Even when we're together, we were with, I forget who it was, Diller or someone else.

He was talking about it.

All these companies have been talking about this and are on the front end.

I think it's actually a good thing that Google does this.

I think it's a good thing that Mark, everyone was sort of writing, oh, Meta's AI thing got shook up.

I'm like, good.

Like, they're doing it quickly, right?

They're adding and subtracting people.

Mark is a going for it kind of guy, like, right?

He always like,

Meta's not working, gone.

Like, that kind of thing.

And that's, that's his superpower, I think, is his control.

And speaking of good managers, he is a good manager.

And so it's interesting that people look at it as a bad thing.

I don't think any of this is a bad thing.

I think it shows that people are sort of adjusting as they're extending, if that makes sense.

Yep.

Yep.

You know, it makes sense to do this.

And the more these companies do this, the stronger they're going to be.

But I do, pretty much everyone at the other companies, I've been talking to a lot of these other companies, do acknowledge that OpenAI has been running away with it in terms of features moving faster,

getting things done.

Obviously, one of the worries at Meta is that ChatGPT has become the Kleenex, right?

Just like Google became the word for search, that ChatGPT is now the word for this.

And so can you catch up if

one company represents,

you know, that's what people think of when they think of AI.

From a marketing point of view, it's an interesting moment, I think.

I agree.

I have nothing to add.

Yeah, but I mean, it depends on how important it'll be to that.

When have you heard that from me?

I know.

Yeah, they're the Kleenex.

Everyone there is interesting.

All right.

Last thing, there's two interesting little stories, which I thought we should talk about very briefly.

ABC News has parted ways with senior national correspondent Terry Moran after he called President Trump and Stephen Miller world-class haters on X.

If you remember, Moran was the one who did that testy MS-13 interview with Trump, who kept pretending a Photoshop thing was real.

The network announced it would not renew Moran's contract after a 28-year stint, calling the X Post a clear violation of policies.

As a reminder, ABC paid $60 million to settle case over comments made by anchor George Stephanopoulos last year.

Moran seems okay.

He's already told followers.

He did a really delightful video that'll be on Substack shortly.

He's sort of taking it well.

Any thoughts on this?

He shouldn't have posted that largely because

he was a beat reporter and was covering the White House.

Even if he thought that, he should have kept it to himself.

He could have done it in a different way by pointing to polls or things they've done or videos or other people talking about it.

He shouldn't have done that.

Yeah, but Dan Rather and Peter Jennings did much worse.

But when the market was booming, they didn't fire people for this.

They just called him in and said, hey, boss, sucks with me, grown up.

Don't do this again.

So he wasn't fired by ABC.

He was fired by Alphabet and Meta, who are sucking so much oxygen out of the room of cable ad sported news that these guys are

looking for reasons to fire people.

And I think this is

quite frankly, I think this is bullshit.

I don't think this is how you treat people.

The guy worked there 28 years.

He was the kind of guy that, in my mind, sort of did the work and was good at what he did.

So what you do is you call him in and you say, you know what?

You made life hard for us.

Business sucks.

You need to announce that

I don't know Terry.

I mean, I know Terry.

I don't know him well.

I think he was looking for his next gig.

ABC needs to cut costs.

There's a way they could have done this without publicly shaming the guy and pretending to have fucking virtue.

If the company was going, if the company's revenues were increasing 10 10 or 15 percent a year, they would have called him in and said, Boss, you can't do this again.

He would have said, Fine, and they would have wink-winked see at the country club.

But now they're all looking to cut costs, so they pretend to be virtuous and have these journalistic standards.

If Terry had been anchoring a news program where they had more and more opioid-induced constipation ads that were they were increasing the ad rates faster than inflation, they would have found.

It's Sky Rizzi.

It's Skyrizzy is the ads.

But go ahead.

But they, they,

Mark Zuckerberg fired him, not ABC.

ABC is looking for any reason it can to lay off people and then pretend they're journalists.

Meanwhile, they're about to get fucked in the ass by, in a bad way, not the pleasurable way, by a fascist and bend the knee like every other media company that's scared to death of this guy right now, trying to stay out of his crosshairs.

So,

yeah, fine.

When people work for you for 28 years,

They're given do-overs.

I agree.

Scott, I think he's a talented bride, but he did put himself in a, given the history here recently, not a smart move on his part.

I agree.

He should have been just taken off for a little while, talked to, and then he would have had, I would have had a lot of time.

Remember when Dan Rather walked off set and CBS went to black for, what was it, six minutes?

Yes, I remember.

He left the air.

But they found excuses to keep Big Dan on.

Until he did that lawsuit, that didn't work out so well.

They definitely.

I agree.

I agree.

When I saw it, I was like, oh, no, no, no.

He's got a lot of people.

All these companies talk about how we're a family and a team.

You don't need a family or a team when you're doing well.

You need them when you fuck up.

They should have treated him.

He was there 28 years doing the work.

You showed the guy a little bit more grace.

And if at the first false move that you fuck up, you get ceremoniously drawn and quartered, guess what?

All of us are going to be unceremoniously fired at some point.

Well, except now he's not because he's on his own.

I'm like, welcome to the do whatever the.

I hope so.

I hope he does well.

Yeah.

Welcome to the sub stack.

Let's promote it.

Do you know what it is?

Yeah, absolutely.

I'm going to bring him on Scott Free August.

Oh, I like that.

Yeah.

Oh, that's great.

I'm going to bring all troublemakers, bringing in Scaramucci.

I'm making troublemakers for you.

I really like Terry because more than anything, he's very handsome.

He's very handsome.

He's a handsome man.

In any case, I agree with you.

Given this environment, he shouldn't have done.

ABC, you're so righteous.

No, here's $10 million, dear fascist, dear leader.

Oh, ABC, good for you, Bobby Iger.

You're a man of principle.

Here's the thing.

I have never thought of anywhere I worked as my family.

Have you?

I've never had been under that delusion.

You, you have a much more romantic version of companies, don't you?

Yeah, but my companies are smaller and I get very strong paternal reward from my companies because it's a bunch of young people.

So I get very,

I'm very rapacious the first year or two years.

I'm like, you got it.

This is like the Navy SEALs.

Anyone can try out, but most of you aren't going to be here in a year.

But the people

I've worked with, I mean, you know my people.

I've been working with my people.

Oh, no, you have.

I had 20 years the same people working for code.

I get it.

I get that.

And I never would have treated them like this.

But it's a really interesting thing is that a lot of these,

I kind of would rather the Google thing, like, okay, it's not working.

We're shifting.

It sort of feels cleaner to me in a lot of ways.

And not be offended by it.

But Terry Moran is a very talented broadcaster, and we wish him incredible

wealth and health and whatever the heck.

And don't feel bad, Terry.

Don't worry about it.

Fuck them if they can't take a joke.

Anyway, you'll like it better on the outside.

It's much more fun.

That's right.

Come on in, the water's fight.

Independent, independent.

Well, you're an independent journalist.

Independent, like whatever it is I do.

Yeah.

You're going to enjoy it.

It's fun.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's true.

You're not a journalist, but you're something.

I don't know what you want.

I'm something.

You're a turducken.

You're a turducken of some sort.

I'm not alien from close encounter.

It's like, we don't understand him, but we think he's nice.

Yeah.

In other Disney news, this is interesting, though.

Disney and Universal have sued AI image generator Midjourney, which is a people really don't like Midjourney for copyright infringement.

The lawsuit alleges Midjourney helped itself to countless copyrighted works to train some of its software, while news organizations, Record Layers, and others have filed similar suits.

This marks the first suit by a major Hollywood studio.

This is a good move on their part.

Midjourney, just like, this, you know, doing shit with Mickey is not cool for or whatever.

Mickey's out of, maybe he's out of copyright, but I think it's parts of him is, parts of Mickey is.

But what do you think about this?

When I was in the fraternity, one of my fraternity brothers or one of my close friends was the head of campus events at UCLA or involved in campus events.

And he ran this ad that showed for

Simba, they were doing a screening of the Lion King and he showed Mickey Mouse riding Simba in the Daily Bruin.

And

we got a call from, I think it was Disney's lawyer saying, hi, just FYI.

You'll be served a subpoena.

We wanted to give you some Ford notices of courtesy, but

you're not allowed to do this.

And I'm like, thinking I can solve every problem.

And so, of course, we did like three bong loads.

And then I said, I know Michael Ovitz was president of our fraternity.

He was president of ZBT UCLA.

We'll call him.

We know these powerful people.

I know how to solve this, right?

I think I can fix any problem.

Total, total, arrogant douchebag American male.

So, and I'm like, but first we need to get a high.

So we call the lawyer and

we say, look, we apologize.

This was clearly wrong.

We won't do it again.

But we were fraternity brothers with Michael Ovitz, thinking that would carry real weight.

And

we won't do it again.

And we apologize.

We're just, you know, just a bunch of college kids.

And the counsel said, the general counsel was like, oh,

my daughter goes to UCLA.

And we ended up, we know her.

We had a nice conversation.

He's like, he was like, anyways, guys, he goes back to the lawsuit.

He's like, guys, I'll see you in court.

court.

You don't fuck with the mouse.

And then he hung up.

And what happened?

You took it down, right?

And here's the bottom line.

The best companies

usually invest a lot, have good people, and they're also rapacious about the defense of our IP.

And as I go full circle for my fraternity in this situation, this is a moment.

for content creators to absolutely rally together and not do one-off deals, but to get someone really mean and really angry and a lot of law firms and charge everyone a certain amount of money and go after all these guys and say, okay,

if we see you're crawling our books, our content, our songs, our

speeches, anything, we're coming for you.

And you gather it all similar to what the artists do around their rights labels, where they say, you can, and then we'll license it to you.

We're going to make a lot of money here.

You guys are making a lot of money.

That's fine.

If you want to use all of Penguin Portfolio Random House's archive of every single book they have, fine.

And then we're going to figure out a deal with our authors.

We're going to do this for all artists.

We're going to, by the way, I met one of my, my, I literally met my favorite artist last night.

We'll come back to that because I know you're dying to talk more about me.

But this is a moment.

We passed that moment about 20 years ago, letting Google crawl our shit, and now it's too late.

This is that moment in AI.

All of these guys should be, should be binding together.

Everyone from Axel Springer to News Corps to the Royal Academy of Arts to everyone that has intellectual property.

A year ago, a year and a half ago.

100%.

And I said it a year and a month ago.

Thank you very much.

So, but they need one, they need to speak with one voice, and they need to be very aggressive in the pushback here.

All these little efforts pushing back.

Reddit filed a lawsuit last week.

They all need,

they all need to come together.

They do.

Anyway, you're 100% right.

100% right.

Well, we'll see if they do.

So, the mouse, we like this move.

What you did to Terry?

Not great.

You didn't want to hear about about my favorite artist?

Oh, well, who's your favorite artist very quickly?

So I went to this very, very fancy event last night.

I went to the Royal Academy of Arts, like Summer Gala last night.

You know, I don't like to go out.

Do you wear spats?

I was forced to go out.

And

I only own one piece of art.

I don't buy wine or art because all my friends, as they got rich, started buying art and wine.

And I'm like, I'm just not that guy.

But someone very important to me.

when I was in Istanbul with them took me to see this exhibition and said, I know you'll just love this guy, even though he knows I'm not into art and it was a guy named grayson perry and his art he has do you know that big orange you probably know better than i do you know that big orange sketch etching i have in my

living room and it's called map of a politician and i just fell in love with it and then this person for my birthday bought it for me and it was the only piece of art i own and he's a really interesting dude did you buy any Oh, no, I didn't.

No, I literally own one.

I own two pieces.

I own one piece of art and one photograph.

The piece of art makes me feel closer to the person who bought it for me.

And I love it.

I have a photograph of Otto Frank and returning to where his family was.

And whenever I'm feeling sorry for myself, I just go look at that photograph.

But anyways, he was there last night, and I got to meet him.

And that was really exciting.

He's a really lovely manner.

But anyways, I got to meet the artist of the one piece of art I own.

Oh, that's nice.

That's lovely, Scott.

Freaking are just evolving into such a lesbian.

It's fantastic.

Aren't I?

By the time I'm 90, I'm going to be like, I'm going to have manners.

I'm going to be able to read the room on my 100th birthday.

Journey of Scott Gallup.

There we go.

All right, Scott.

One more quick break.

We'll be back for predictions.

He's a human boy.

This week on Criminal, at 6 a.m.

on August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana.

People in the Fisher housing projects were trapped without food, water, and electricity.

It didn't seem like anyone was coming to help.

And then 20-year-old Jabbar Gibson found about a dozen park school buses.

I decided right then and there that I was going to drive one of these buses, but I didn't know how.

Listen to the latest episode of Criminal to hear what happened next.

Listen to Criminal, wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, so here's the deal.

Take a Steelers captain who's been bleeding black and gold and playing for the Steelers for over a decade.

That's me, Cam Hayward.

Add-in football minds who live and breathe this game, and you get not just football with Cam Hayward, a weekly podcast where we break down the sport we all live for.

We talk about what's really happening in the league.

Sit down with players you know and respect and shine a light on the moment that don't make the highlight reels.

Whether it's the season predictions, sharing what it's really like in the locker room, or diving into the real stories behind the headline.

We've got it all.

This podcast is about having fun and giving fans an inside look at what makes football incredible.

Catch not just football with Cam Hayward on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

Like, subscribe, follow, all that good stuff.

Let's get after it.

This week on Net Worth and Chill, I'm going back to school with money lessons they never taught you in the classroom.

As students head back to campus and parents feel the financial squeeze, I'm breaking down everything you need to know about navigating educational costs.

This episode is packed with actionable advice.

Never pay full price for travel.

You're going to go to kayak.com/slash c slash students.

There, you're going to find discounts on student travel ranging anywhere from 5 to 40% off normal flight prices.

Plus, I'm revealing how parents can set their kids up for financial success without sacrificing their own retirement.

Whether you're a student trying to graduate debt-free, a parent planning for college costs, or someone still paying off those loans years later, this back-to-school special will change how you think about education and money.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on youtube.com/slashyourrich BFF.

Okay, Scott, let's hear hear a prediction.

I always sort of had kid gloves around this, but

that's that noise.

Say that, do that noise again.

What is that?

Why did you just make that noise?

I don't know.

I have a prostate exam later today, and I'm just practicing.

Okay.

Elbows on the table.

Elbows on the table.

That's all I know.

Run your hands through my hair.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think Gavin Newsom is now coming out of this, the de facto leader of the Democratic Party, and that was a void the size of the freaking Grand Canyon.

As you've noted.

Now, should he declare for his presidency?

I was thinking this.

I almost texted him and said, you should declare for his presidency.

He has right now.

He has.

He has.

Actually, and then start making pronouncements.

No, probably not yet because it would warrant.

But he's already, he's

the people who should declare presidency, the people that nobody knows because they'll get a ton of.

He is already the de facto candidate by virtue of what's happened this week.

And he should start.

And he also, and I said this a few months ago, him bringing Charlie Kirk on and Newt Gingrich onto his podcast, as much as the Taliban of the left hates that, that was the right move.

It was just a bad interview, Scott.

I don't have a problem with him having it on.

It just, he didn't do a good job.

But go ahead.

I think he's the de facto leader of the Democratic Party right now coming out of this, too.

Can I ask, can I add something?

Who do you think if he was running?

I was thinking if he ran, his vice president should either be Pete Budigej or someone I saw the other night, Gina Ramundo.

Anyway, those are my ideas.

I think she's she's fantastic.

She is amazing.

She's just sharp as a friggin tack.

If you want someone that's good for the economy and just does the work,

she's that person.

It's a question of she may run for president, by the way.

A woman will not be the Democratic nominee, and nor should she be.

If we have another woman lose for the third time, Carrie, you're not going to have a female president for 50 years.

I thought she would, as much as I think she is utterly capable of being president, I thought she should be the vice president for Gavin Newsom.

That would be a really interesting.

Let me be looksist and sexist in one fell swoop.

I can guarantee you not one person, the Democratic nominee will not be under 5'10.

No president in the last hundred years has been under 5'10.

He's big.

We are a little bit.

He's a handsome man.

He's a handsome man.

That's my point.

I hate to say it.

Handsome man.

The first, we will have a female president.

She will be a Republican.

And the key attribute she will bring is a reputation that if your family runs a stop sign, she'll drone your ass.

Yes.

She will be the first female president of the U.S.

will have to be someone so fucking scary.

She'll drone your ass.

Well, that would have been Liz Cheney, right?

That would have been in the old days.

Liz is probably the closest we could have had to an electable female president.

Someone else would come along.

She would join.

Anyways, it's not going to be a Democrat.

And the Democrats are not going to take their chances on a gay man.

They're not going to take their chances on a woman.

They're not going to take their chances on someone who's less than 5'10.

I'm sorry.

That's the bottom line.

Anyways,

as VP, that's a really good one.

Just play that game for a second.

I'd probably macho it up and bring in like a former military person.

I don't know.

know.

Mark Kelly.

There's a lot of, there's so many good VP candidates.

I think, yeah.

I don't know.

They'll figure out what states they need help in.

Who do you like?

I think there's a lot of interesting people.

I don't know yet because I think Westmore is always talked about and most feared by the right.

That's for sure.

He's very good.

I still like, you know, in my life, a Michael Bennett would be such a good president.

I always think of who'd be a good president.

Of course, that doesn't matter anymore.

Celebrity matters.

Probably, I think when I ran into Gina Rondo the other day, I was like, oh, she's so fucking impressive.

She's so fucking impressive.

You know who we just had on

the Raising Moderates pod yesterday was Richie Torres.

Oh, I don't, I'm not a fan.

What?

Not a fan.

Sorry.

Oh, my God.

I love that guy.

I think he's so performative.

I still keep thinking, I agree with you.

Raised by a single mother, struggled with depression.

Not impressive.

I don't like him.

Oh, by the way,

let me say,

by the way, our producers are saying there have been presidents under 5'10 but in the last hundred years who harry truman jimmy carter jimmy was five foot ten under i guess yeah must have been that's what our producers did today what did you five nine point five five nine point five i don't know how tall here

was okay 1.7 that wasn't a particularly successful presidency even though he had a great post-presidency harry truman 5'9

And he came to office because the president died.

5'9.

Jimmy Carter was 5'10.

All right, he says 9.5.

All right.

Well, whatever.

He's that tall.

He wasn't tall.

Whatever.

All that matters is I'm eight inches.

Oh my god.

Okay.

I won't tell you my nickname in the fraternity.

I won't tell you my nickname in the fraternity.

Don't force me to tell you my nickname in the fraternity, Kara.

It's tripod.

So you've already told me.

God, we're like an old couple.

I know we are.

Give me the Republican candidate then.

No, it's going to be, I think it's going to be J.D.

Vance.

I do not think that.

No?

Go ahead.

It's either going to be Marco Rubio or like a Glenn Yunkin.

That's my feeling.

Yunkin's the guy who would win.

Well, I'm just saying.

Although he hasn't had the most spectacular Virginia situation.

But Trump's going to have so much power that he'll basically, unless he has a huge erosion in his base, he'll be able to pick the person.

I think it'll be, I don't think it'll be.

I think.

He likes Vance.

I don't think he likes Vance.

You don't think he likes Vance?

Vance is unlikable.

He really is.

He's just, he repels voters.

They need an interesting looking person.

It's got to be like a youngin' or, and Trump wants to keep it there.

So it's not going to be his son who forget that.

I mean, he knows he's a loser.

Probably

it's got to be, it's got to be Rubio or something like that.

Something like that.

I think Rubio is too short.

All right.

Okay.

Anyway, he's also somewhat charmless too.

Also, that's true.

When he said Lil Marco, I thought,

that is correct.

Oh, wait.

So my prediction, my actual prediction is that

the worst, I think probably the worst acquisition of the last decade in terms of value destruction or overpaying happened last week.

OpenAI's acquisition of the design firm, I think it's called IO.

Oh, yes.

Johnny Ives.

I think Johnny Ives is fantastic.

Just to be clear, company with no products gets acquired for $6.5 billion

for a guy who is

a genius designer.

He deserved all his due.

Sorry, boss, that's not worth $6.5 billion.

I mean, he's he's cosplaying Steve Jobs.

This thing will be written down by,

let me be clear, iconic legendary designer, maybe even worth like $100 million, which means a $6.4 billion write-down.

And in addition, OpenAI is going to find that

designing products, they'd be much better off.

Let me save them some time, partner with hardware firms.

Right.

And

you thinking that you're going to bring in this guy Richie-like genius who dresses incredibly well and rightfully is considered one of the great designers of all time is going to figure out a way for you to get into products.

No.

A very charming guy.

He is.

He was the last speaker at Code along with Lorraine, Powell Jobs and Tim Cook.

Yeah.

By the way, amazing.

I'm not this.

I'm not.

The whole thing when the two of them did this promo video on the acquisition, and it was so much like, I'm just a billionaire standing in front of a billionaire wanting to be trillionaires.

It was just so.

it was strange.

It was strange.

Whatever.

Let's give it to them.

They've done a nice job over it.

All right.

We want to hear from you.

Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind.

Go to nymag.com/slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 85551PIVOT.

Elsewhere in the CARA and Scott universe, this week on Prof G Markets, Scott spoke with Catherine Ann Edwards, PhD economist and columnist for Bloomberg News.

She weighs in on the latest jobs data and unpacks how the economy has reacted to Trump's policies.

Let's listen to a clip.

What we are seeing is the effect of uncertainty.

And uncertainty is all about idling.

I'm not going to move much in either direction until I know which way the wind is blowing.

So I'm not going to hire that many people.

I'm not going to fire that many people.

I'm not going to make massive investments, but I'm not going to pull back from the ones that I have.

I'm just waiting in place to understand what the world is going to look like.

And that has been the economy really since September.

really very absolutely true no one knows what to do because he's crazy uh okay that's the show thanks for listening to pivot and be sure to like and subscribe to our youtube channel scott we'll be back next week from france where we i will be charging things to scott's room uh very soon very very soon overpriced whatever it happens to be but i will be that will be the charge there scott uh we'll be back next week from france in fact uh scott read us out today's show is produced by laura naiman joy marcus taylor griffin and Kevin Oliver.

Ernie Intertod introduced this episode.

Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Ms.

Severo, and Dan Shallon.

Deshaun Curat is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts.

Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform.

Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine, Vox Media.

You can subscribe to the magazine and wymag.com/slash pod.

We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

This is not leadership, it's fascist foreplay, and history will not be kind.